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Property Porn is a recognised thing these days. We’re all at it, drooling over cliff-top houses and chateaux in the Loire. But in my experience you can manage two full blown porn habits: the property one (which you might enjoy as a couple), and the other private, more time consuming one, which is Recipe Porn.

Last week alone - if you’re making me count- I ripped out of various papers and magazines Gwyneth Paltrow’s recipe for carbonara; someone else’s for tarragon chicken fricassee; and one for 'easy tomato soup' also courtesy of Gwyneth. (She’s got a new book out, If it was Nigella’s turn I'd have been tearing out a recipe for sticky ‘Ooh I Shouldn’t’ something in a bowl). That was a slow week, by the way. In December I was cutting out two or three recipes for stuffing, most days.

But here’s the thing: I don’t cook. I mean I do cook, but I’m in the can’t-be-bothered-if-it- involves-using-a-mixer-or-a- blender camp. My signature dish is still, after twenty-five years, Coronation Chicken. If I am in a kitchen with a group of friends, I am the one who is put on salad dressing duty, or maybe roast potatoes. No-one would ever say to me ‘could you rustle up a quick salsa verde’, which I regret, but that’s where I am on the perceived ability spectrum. Yet still I’m an enthusiastic recipe porn addict, ripping out and hoarding and occasionally secreting a couple in my handbag to oggle on the bus.

"In December I was cutting out two or three recipes for stuffing, most days"

I know what's driving this and it’s not what you think. It is true that you can be attracted to a Gwynnie recipe because you want to live like someone who was brought up in Cape Cod, cartwheeling on an emerald green lawn under the shadow of a fluttering stars and stripes. And it’s also true that those aerial shots of her tow headed children, eating homemade soup in their PJs, work like a dream on guilty parents, especially the ones who raised theirs on suspiciously cheap chicken and burgers that might not, in retrospect, have been pure cow.

'You can be attracted to a Gwynnie recipe because you want to live like someone who was brought up in Cape Cod'Credit:
Getty Images

That’s lifestyle recipe porn: you don’t expect to cook it, just knowing that your stash is there in the event of you having an urge to make a three-tiered Easter cake is enough. But these days when I pore over a recipe, rip it out and ‘file’ it with the others, I’m genuinely hoping it will provide inspiration down the line. I want to cook fish, and not just individual salmon portions. I intend to get my head around squid and coconut oil. The plan is to dip into the porn stash, next time I have a reason to make an effort and force myself out of a culinary rut: exciting new dish involving pomegranate molasses, here we come.

The only trouble is, recipe porn is exactly like property porn. You look and you fantasise (We could have a river! And a buttery! And a derelict chapel!) but when it comes to the crunch you know you won’t act on it because it’s safer and easier to stick with what’s familiar. Better the chicken thighs that you can do in your sleep and get ready hours in advance, thereby allowing you to drink more wine, than the untried thing with the giant cous cous. So the chances are that when everyone comes round for supper, you will be dressed in your trusty trousers (not the new skirt you were planning to wear), and serving up something you’ve cooked a million times from a recipe you double checked with BBC Food online.

That doesn’t put you off ripping out recipes though. The ripping out goes on forever.